Curated OER
Dinosaurs Were Real!
Students investigate the history of dinosaurs, as real animals. In this dinosaur lesson plan, students examine basic concepts that help them understand the history of all life. Included in this article is information on the world of the...
Curated OER
Lift and Drag: Principles of Flight and the Soaring Imagination
Students construct models of early gas balloons and gliders. In this balloon and glider lesson plan, students create models of early gas balloons and gliders, discover how the forces of lift and drag effect aircraft in flight, and put...
Curated OER
Teaching With the Power of Objects
Students define value of an object. In this value lesson plan, students identify reasons for collecting objects, compile a personal inventory of items they find valuable, and then define why those items are valuable to them. In step two...
Curated OER
History Close to Home: Creating Your Own Special Museum
Students create their own museum exhibit. In this museum creation lesson plan, students research their local history so they can decide on a theme for their exhibit and what objects they will use in order to design a museum exhibit. A...
Curated OER
Learning from Letters and Other Mail
Students explore the history of our mail system. In this postal lesson plan, students evaluate mail as a means of communication, create a mail system in their classroom where they can send and receive mail. Once the students receive...
Curated OER
Playing Historical Detective: Great Grandmother's Dress and Other Clues to the Life and Times of Annie Steel
Students draw conclusions about an mystery person based on documents and artifacts provided. In this drawing conclusions lesson, students become detectives by reading and analyzing evidence provided. This lesson includes information on...
Curated OER
Using Artifacts to Engage Students in Critical Thinking Activities
Creating learning centers with artifact-related activities are a great way to promote deductive reasoning and critical thinking skills.
Curated OER
The Grapes of Wrath: Scrapbooks and Artifacts
Students interpret historical evidence presented in primary and secondary sources. In this Great Depression lesson plan, students read John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath and use ethnographic research...
Curated OER
The DÃne (Navajo) Native American Tribe
Students participate in a variety of activities to become familiar with the Navajo Indians. In this DÃne (Navajo) Native American tribe lesson, students understand where the Navajo tribe lived and find them on a map. Students discuss the...
Curated OER
Pharaoh Phonetics
Students explain the purpose of hieroglyphics and identify their role in communicating ideas. They research the history of writing and it's significance in ancient Egyptian life and identify the components of hieroglyphics.
Council for Economic Education
Cost/Benefit Analysis: Three Gorges Dam
Students, in groups, take various roles in evaluating the costs/benefits of the Three Gorges Dam project on the Yangtze River in China.
Curated OER
Activity: Polymer Clay Millefiori Cane Beads
Students show an understanding of how millefiori beads are constructed by making some in several styles in polymer clay. They view images and techniques on a website imbedded in this plan and then attempt to make their own.
Curated OER
Helping the Adolescent Cope with Family Life
Students are introduced to the proper ways to deal with conflict at home. In groups, they define family based on what it means to them and identify factors that lead to a breakdown in communications. They participate in role-playing...
Curated OER
Research Project
Students explore Chinese New Year, complete a cyber hunt, and write a report which includes pictures, using the information they found.
Curated OER
Lewis and Clark: The Language of Discovery
Students replicate some of the trailblazing methods of Lewis and Clark on a fifteen-minute "writing journey" through the school or neighborhood.
Curated OER
Animal Encounters
Students use their visualizing and interpreting skills to produce original writings and artwork.
Curated OER
How Things Fly
Students observe photographs of selected twentieth-century aircraft at the National Air and Space Museum and note differences in the design of aircraft wings, fuselages, and engines.
Curated OER
How Things Fly
Students, by drawing on their own experiences, discuss and examine the basic physics of flight. They participate in a variety of activities regarding flight.
Curated OER
Stories of the Wrights' Flight
Students examine and compare primary and secondary source accounts of the Wright brothers' first flights on December 17, 1903.
Curated OER
Money Talks
Students move from fact finding to interpretation as they examine paper money from the time of the American Revolution. In the final exercise, they use the issue dates of the bills to construct a chronology of political changes during...
Curated OER
Pictures Telling Stories
Students see the importance of primary sources in the study of history, but also the limitations of relying only on primary sources of taking the money, as it were, at face value.
Curated OER
The Rocky Shore
Students compare a realistic landscape painting with a photograph of the same place.
Curated OER
Spy on a Spider
Students view slides or live specimens to name and describe the distinguishing features of groups of arthropods, especially spiders and insects. They complete worksheets, observe webs and then search for and record where spiders can be...
Curated OER
Creatures from Planet X: Spiders
Young scholars are given a description of some fascinating animals from "Planet X". They follow the descriptions given to illustrate one of these animals paying careful attention to introduced vocabulary such as 'appendages',...